Poll: 60% of Democrats sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israelis

New poll finds Democrats overwhelming oppose aid to Israel, with just 15% saying they sympathize more with Israelis than with Palestinians.

By World Israel News Staff

A new poll points to a widening collapse in support for Israel among Democratic voters, with nearly three-quarters opposing additional US aid to the Jewish state and a clear majority saying they sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis.

The New York Times/Siena College survey found that 74% of Democratic voters oppose “providing additional economic and military support to Israel,” while only 20% support it, according to the Times/Siena data.

The poll also found that 60% of Democrats sympathize more with Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, compared with 15% who sympathize more with Israel.

The findings mark one of the starkest signs yet that Israel has become a major point of division between Democratic voters and the party’s leadership.

Nearly half of Democratic voters, 48%, said the party has been too supportive of Israel, while 34% said its level of support has been about right and 8% said it has not been supportive enough.

The shift is especially sharp among younger voters. Among Democratic respondents ages 18 to 44, only 7% said they sympathized more with Israel, compared with 22% among Democrats over 45.

The national results showed broader erosion as well. Across all registered voters, 57% opposed additional US economic and military support for Israel, while 37% supported it.

On the question of sympathy, voters were nearly evenly split but tilted slightly toward Palestinians, with 37% saying they sympathized more with Palestinians and 35% siding more with Israel.

That is the highest level of support found for Palestinians since the Times began polling Americans on the question in 1998, when 58% of respondents said they sympathized more with Israelis, compared to 13% who said they sympathized more with Palestinians.

The poll comes as the Trump administration faces criticism over its handling of both the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war with Iran.

Among Democrats, 90% disapproved of Trump’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while 94% opposed his approach to the Iran war. Eighty-four percent said the war with Iran was not worth the costs.

Republicans remain more supportive of Israel than Democrats, but the national toplines suggest that opposition to new aid is no longer confined to the Democratic left.

Only 37% of all respondents — and just 5% of voters ages 18 to 29 — supported additional economic and military support for Israel.

The Times/Siena survey questioned 1,507 registered voters by phone earlier this month and had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.